CITY LIMITS COMMUNITY . HOUSING NEWS JANUARY 1 · 978 VOL. 3 NO.1 LEVENTHAL APPOINTED N E W H P D COMMISSIONER K R A VITZ, A PLANNER, IS DIRECTOR O F ANHD Alan Kravitz Alan S. Kravitz, a planner an d coordipator of urban studies at the State University of New York College at Purchase, has been appointed executive director of the Association of Neighborhood Housing Developers. The announcement o f Kravitz's selection, effective Jan. 23, was made by Margare t McNeill,president of ANHD and · director o f the West Harlem Community Organization. In addition to teaching, Kravitz, 35, has served as a consultant to seve ral community-based housing organizations. He is co -a ut h or o f a forthcoming book, A Critical Ecology o f Urban Life, advocating de ce ntralization and the development o f a wide range of neighborhood institutions. Among hi s oth er writings is a recent essay, submitted for inclusion in a House o f Representatives subcommittee report, on the negative effects o f "planned shrinkage" of cities. continued on page 12 SURPRISE CHOICE by Susan Baldwin Nathan Leventhal, a lawyer who at 34 has already seen several brief tours of duty in government, has been appointed Commissioner of New York City's Department of Housing Preservation an d Development(HPD). Mayor Edward I . Koch an nounced the surprise appointment January 13, subject to clearance from the Department of Investigation, at the end of his second week in office. Th e new administration was under mounting pressure from housing activists and tenants withou t heat in the bitter cold of winter to choose its top official. They were concerned about the steady decline of city housing and services as well as the impact o f the City's fourthyear Community Development application. As former Mayor John V. Lindsay's Rent an d Housing Maintenance Commissioner in 1972-73, Leventhal was credited with speeding up implementation of the Maximum Base Rent (MBR) law, inaugurating the city's low income cooperative conversion program, an d supervising the transition to the new housing court enforcement system. continued on page 9
flu, for the people fighting to save low and moderateincome housing in the inner city.
"Teach Your Dollars to Have More Cents." Thismotto is a kind of medicine of the future being testedtoday all over the nation by Community DevelopmentCredit Unions (CDCU's) to combat the widespread
disinvestment in inner-city housing by the savings banksand savings and loan institutions.
The medicine, in the form of the accumulated sav
ings of the residents of low income neighborhoods, canwork to save housing, says James N. Clark, executivedirector of the National Federation of CDCU's, but
only if credit unions' mortgage loans are introducedinto the neighborhoods as part of a comprehensive program devised and supported by a wide range of public
and private agencies.Clark, who works ou t of the federation's national
headquarters in Brooklyn, spoke to CITY LIMITS inmid-January in the wake of recent Congressional legislation permitting the federally-chartered CDCU's to
make 30-year mortgage loans. The previous limit wasten years.
For the 4OO-odd CDCU's, of which there are three
in New York City, having the right to make 30-year
mortgage loans "demands that the CDCU's becomemore organized," says Clark. "They must learn how to
lobby and be ready to go to court" to defend themselvesagainst the attacks of other savings and lending institu
day's mail, and talked about the future of CDCU's in
low income neighborhoods. "You know," he told a
visitor, "I really do think we'll make it."
The federation, whose stationery bears the dollarand-cents-wise motto, is three years old this month."I got involved with this national movement quite byaccident," Alayon continued. " It was 1971, and a
number of us who had experience in the federal government's OEO credit unions were meeting in Washington
trying to figure out what to do since [President] Nixonhad impounded all the neighborhood money. I saidthis was a political problem, and the next thing I knew,
I was the head of a political action committee that
finally grew into the national federation. "Alayon and other credit unions' representatives
volunteered the year-and-a-half that it took, beginning
in 1975, to do a low -income credit union feasibilitystudy. Last April they won a $72,000 demonstrationgrant from the ·Community Services Administration
(CSA) to underwrite the national staff's salaries."Weare writing up a proposal right now based on
the feasibility study," said Alayon. "W e hope to receive a $20 million CSA grant, possibly by this summer," he added, which the federation would use to
support from 150 to 200 new CDCU's around the
country. He noted that, even if the $20 million is notforthcoming, the federation has been promised $2 mil
lion to continue its current work, with which it will be
borhood such as ours," says Cecilio Fernandez, amember of CABS' board of directors. "You have to
absorb more losses than you would if you were in a
better neighborhood. The main point we have to keepin mind is that we are providing a service for a largegroup of people who have no other place to go to
borrow money, and that we are offering interest ratescomparable with any bank's."
What are the factors that draw to the COCU's the
members who help them survive the hazards of limitedcapitalization and the hostility of competing financial
institutions? An ongoing study, done for the federationby the research division of the Credit Union National
Association (CUNA), and updated to 1976, provides thefollowing answers:
"(1) For many members the credit union is the onlysource of consumer credit;
"(2) Loans at credit unions generally may be ob
tained at lower rates than those available from otherfinancial institutions, and in the case of COCU's, the
rate differentials are likely to be more pronounced than
for othe r credit unions;"(3) The income generated from the loans tends to
stay in the community in the form of dividends, reserves
and salaries, rather than accrue to outside lenders;"(4) Financial counseling and consumer education
services have helped members better understand the useof credit and more wisely utilize their limited financial
The study, which reports the responses of slightlyless than half the 400 COCU's, reveals that the respon
dents have granted a total of about $440 million in loansto members since 1971, and that members pay about
$4.4 million less in inttrest each year than they wouldpay to traditional fin 1 nstitutions.
Commenting r on the early days of his creditunion, Eugene S k l a r . ~ ~ ' i ' anager of Union Settlement,said, "It was e s s e n t ~ a staff credit union (of the
Union Settlement House), operating a few hours perweek with limited assets and knowledge. In 1963, afull-time treasurer was made available by the parent
organization; trust and assets began to grow and membership was slowly opened to the community.
"Those in good standing had to vouch for the
integrity of those they were recommending for membership," Sklar continued. "Those on welfare were grantedan initial loan maximum of $100 which, upon good
experience, could slowly grow to $250. And so, theboard struggled with whether we were social workers or
bankers before deciding we were benevolent bankers
and sending recalcitrant borrowers of f to the collectionagency."
Screening of would-be members is a key to stability,
all New York COCU's agree. "W e want to help everyone who needs help," said the federation's Alayon, whostill works for CABS, "but this can become a big problem if it is not adequately controlled. I f you just accept
appropriation for the neighborhood preservationprogram, a ten-fold increase over the currentbudget.
Carey requested the increased funding in hisexecutive budget fo r 1978-79. The State Legislature must adopt the budget by March 31 for thefiscal year beginning April 1.
The State Division of Housing and Community Renewal has been flooded with applications from community-based housing organizations for funding under the new neighborhoodpreservation program.
More than 100 groups from all over New YorkState applied for grants totaling $7.2 million, aDHCR spokesman said. The program has $500,000.
The response was so much greater than anti-
cipated that the administrators of the program
have asked for additional help.DHCR is hoping to complete its evaluation of
the applications and make final decisions byFeb. 1. The spokesman declined to predict how
many groups would be funded.The new law permits community-based hous
ing organizations to contract with DHCR fo r
grants to cover their operat ing expenses. The contracts are renewable up to three years.
Approximately $350,000 is expected to go to
New York City groups and $150,000 to groups inupstate New York.
Organizations that are not selected this time
will be eligible for the next round of funding,scheduled fo r next spring after the new statebudget has been approved. _
The New York State Banking Department,responding to pressure from a coalition of antiredlining groups, has scheduled a public hearingJan. 25 on proposed regulations governing bankmergers and new branches.
Superintendent Muriel Siebert agreed to thehearing after meeting Dec. 6 with more than 60representatives of anti-redlining community
groups who assembled at her office at the WorldTrade Center.
Herb Steiner, chairperson of South BrooklynAgainst Investment Discrimination, told Siebertthe coalition members were concerned that they
had not been consulted while the regulat ions werebeing drafted.
"We feel that when the new regulations wereproposed, we were not made part of that," Steinersaid. "We wish that there had been some outreachto call our people in so that your staff could havegotten the results of our ideas."
Siebert at first suggested that they submit
their views in writing. When the group rejectedthat as inadequate, she consulted briefly with heraides and said, "I see no problem. I will be delighted to give you public hearings."
The hearing will be held at Union Temple,17 Eastern Parkway near Grand Army Plaza inBrooklyn, beginning at 6:30 p.m.
The proposed regulations concern interpretation of the "public convenience and advantage"criteria tha t banks are supposed to satisfy in orderto merge, to open new branches or to close old
As drafted, the regulations would require theSuperintendent and the Banking Board to consider "whether the applicant has taken steps to
ensure that all applications for credit received inits existing facilities in this State, as well as inthe proposed facility, are considered on their
merits."
Anti-redlining community groups wantstronger regulations to require that banks show asignificant volume of investment and active advertising in older urban neighborhoods they aresupposed to be serviCing before being allowed to
open branches in newer suburban communities.
The meeting with Siebert was unexpected.The entire State Banking Board was scheduled to
meet that day and a spokesman had already told
the coalition that the meeting would be closed.The group planned to distribute leaflets.
When they arrived at the World Trade Centerthey learned that the board meeting had been canceled due to an Upstate snowstorm. The groupthen decided to demand a meeting with Siebert.The request was denied at first, then granted whenthe anti-redlining delegation made it clear theywere not gOing to leave the office without ameeting.
In addition to South Brooklyn AID, organiza
tions represented at the meetingincluded
theGreenpoint-Williamsburg Committee on Redlining, several Bank on Brooklyn groups and theReinvestment Committee of the Northwest Bronx
Construction at the sweat equity project on East11 th Street was at a standstill. The latest phase of workwas finished. Requisitions totalling $12,000 had been
submitted to the city. And meanwhile there was no
money to buy new materials. A day went by; two days ,a week. And still no check from the city.
Cash flow has not been an uncommon problem ina city system where processing requisitions from sweat
equity sites has been slow and loan money paid onlyafter the job was finished. There was no telling howmuch longer the wait for reimbursement would be.
Frustrated at the idleness of the project, MichaelFreedberg of the East 11 th Street Housing Movementturned to a reliable source-the Consumer-FarmerFoundation.
"So what's the problem? Meyer Parodneck, the
foundation's president, said he told Freedberg. "I said,
'Mike, what's the requisition for?'""$12,000."
"Come up and get a check. "That is the kind of timely service that has made the
foundation a pivotal part of the self-help housingrehabilitation movement in New York City. It has beena unique resource for community-based housing organizations, providing them with infusions of cash to tide
them over while they waited for other loans that move
through slower pipelines.In four years, the Consumer-Farmer Foundation
has given loans totalling $200,000 to $300,000 for morethan 60 housing rehabilitation projects. I t has backed
Melrose-Morrisania area of the South Bronx. "Without
their assistance, the chances of our developing into theorganization we are is doubtful," Rueda said.
The Manhattan Valley Development Corp. borrowed $1,300 to obtain insurance thatwas a prerequisitefor closing the mortgage loan on two buildings slated tobecome low-income cooperatives. MVDC also borrowed$5,000 to pay for architectural services prior to closing
the loan on a third building."We have received the most wonderful cooperation
and response from the foundation," said Leah Schneiderof MVDC. "I think they're the only place in the city we
can count on for an immediate response. "I f Consumer-Farmer is an unlikely name for an
organization dedicated to housing, it is because from
1937 until 1971 it functioned as a milk cooperative,
providing consumers with a saving of to a quart.
At the time the cooperative was organized, theprincipal source of milk in the city was doorstep deliveryand "ma and pa " neighborhood stores. Becausemechanical cooling was in its infancy and transportation limited, dairy farmers had to do business with themilk company with a nearby receiving station.
To liberate the farmer from the grip of the milkmonopoly, the Consumer-Farmer Milk CooperativeInc. was formed to process, market and distribute milk.
Farmers, many of them with small operations, becamethe members. Processing plants were purchased in NewYork and New Jersey. At its peak, the cooperative had72 distributing stations, all located in New York City's
went back to our origins-serving the consumer at thepoint of greatest need. "
I f nutrition was a paramount consumer need of the1930s, shelter was seen as the consumer issue of the1970s.
"W e felt that the poor could do more to supplythemselves and to influence the supply of shelter thanthey had been doing," Parodneck said. "The practicewas always to have somebody doing things for people.I never liked that. I f you want to do something I'll helpyou. I won't do it for you."
In 1971, the Consumer-Farmer Milk Cooperative,Inc. terminatc::d its activities. Its assets were liquidatedand $1 million was turned over to the new Consumer
Farmer Foundation Inc.In addition to the East 11 th Street Housing Move
ment and MVDC, Consumer-Farmer has also givenloans to the Oceanhill-Brownsville Tenants Association,the Renigades Housing Movement, United HarlemGrowth and the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood.
Philip St. Georges, director of the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, called the foundation"totally essential" to the housing movement and said
its loans had smoked the city out on supporting selfhelp housing efforts.
"The foundation was willing to take the risk withmoney at a point where the government was waveringand even negative about whether to do a project," St.Georges said. The foundation's commitment, he added,served as leverage to prod the city into approving loansto community groups.
Getting a loan from the foundation means passing
the test of dedication."My standards are strictly subjective and per
sonal, " Parodneck said. "What is the dedication of thepeople to the project? What sacrifices are they prepared
Meyer Parodneck
down Los Sures's first request for a loan because thegroup had not gotten its other loan commitments. " Heis hard-nosed about money and hard-nosed aboutpersonal honor," Harris said. "It is a refreshingcombination. "
Unlike most creditors, Parodneck seems to havethe genuine admiration and affection of those who haveborrowed money from him. It is a debt that appears to
go well beyond money.Parodneck in turn gives the groups high marks for
fiscal integrity and honesty. "Oh, we've had some losses(he estimated $80,000) and we have some loans on the
With the many wishes of Happy New Year! onlyrecently fading, housing activists around the City are
returning from the holiday season to discover a grimnew issue in 1978: more City-owned buildings than
ever before. And more City-owned buildings than
imaginable.
Examine these facts:No. of Current City-Owned Properties 6,000No. of Properties Actually In Rem Tax
Foreclosure by the City of New York
(Staten Island, Bronx, Manhattan) 13,800Upcoming Brooklyn In RemForeclosure 12,000 - 15,000
Total Possible City-owned Propertyin 1978 31,800 - 34,800
Approximate No. of Dwelling Units(x7d.u. average) 222,600 -243,600
These figures have been supplied by the City's own
Corporation Counsel, In Rem Foreclosure unit. They
are the result of several years of maneuvering within
The unfortunate result for community organizations and housing activists all around the City is clear.
The greatest slumlord in the City of New York, TheDepartment of Real Property (formerly the Dept. of
Real Estate) will drastically increase its already secureposition as largest owner and worst maintainer of hous
ing in New York City. The same 60 managers who arenow incapable of managing 6,000 properties (IOO properties per person) will now try their skills upon 534
properties per person, or nearly 3,800 units of housingper manager!
This bleak pictur.e is made worse by the continuinginability of the Department of Housing Preservationand Development (HPD) to gear-up any effective pro
grammatic or development alternatives utilizing Com
munity Development Block Grant Funds. As of thiswriting, only the Community Management Program,managing approximately 2,000 units of currently city
owned housing, shows any promise of coping with theproblems. Direct Sales (I-Title Transfer), Participation
Loans (6 buildings closed), receivership, et al. remainineffective and mired in bureaucratic quagmires.
So welcome to the New Year! Whole neighborhoods are collapsing and coming up for auction by the
said, "I don't see any problem here. [Deputy Mayor]Herman Badillo will be very active in this area of con
cern, and already has been. We hope to show that this
concern is translated into action. . . I am sure that
[Deputy Mayor] David Brown will also have some hous
ing positions to make known."Commissioner-designate Leventhal refused comment on current HPD programs until his appointmentwas cleared, but he did stress the importance to thecity's housing effort of making public specific, timely,
and accurate data on federally -assisted housing programs. "N o one is ever sure of the numbers," he said."I ran into that problem in the Lindsay days, but I'm a'numbers' man, and I don't like that kind of ambiguity.
I think there should be a clear accounting."[See story on Section 8 Housing Assistance, Page 12 ]
Commissioner-designate Leventhal's appointmentmet with wide approval from area housing officials.
Thomas Appleby, who resigned last September ashead of the city's Housing and Development Admini
stration to become regional administratof of the federalDepartment of Housing and Urban Development(HUD), said of Leventhal, "I think it's a good appoint
ment. He has background in the department. I' m sureother officials will have something to say about theoffice and the appointment. "
Daniel Joy heads HPD's Office of Rent and Hous
ing Maintenance; the position Leventhal once held. Joy
said, "I worked with Leventhal in the Lindsay administration, and, during that period, I acquired a great deal
of respect for his administrative skills and abilities."Another HPD official, Deputy Commissioner Carl
Callender of the Division of Evaluation and Compliance, said of Leventhal's new job, "Sensitivity is thekey word, and I believe he will bring in people who aresensitive to the needs of our communities.
people, rather than for the banking and real estate
interests. I f Nat Leventhal can turn this around, that
will be fine, but I don't think he can. Housing policy is
not made by the Commissioner, but by the City Administration" she concluded, "and I haven' t seen any policy
change in the new administration. "Prior to his service as Rent and Housing Maintenance Commissioner, Leventhal worked from 1967-69 on
the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,adjusting cases of alleged discrimination in employment.
From 1969-70, he was fiscal director of the City's
Human Resources Administration; from then until1972, he was assistant to the mayor, acting as liaison toCity agencies.
When his service as Rent and Housing MaintenanceCommissioner ended in 1973, Leventhal served brieflyas special counsel to a U.S. Senate subcommittee on
administrative practice ~ n d procedure, and enteredprivate law practice in 1974. He is a public member of
the New York City Bar Association Committee onHousing and Urban Development.
Leventhal was graduated in 1966 from ColumbiaUniversity Law School, where -he was editor-in-chief of
the Law Review from 1965-66.Leventhal is single and lives in Manhattan. Hissalary will be $54,000. •
Last summer, Leventhal wrote a letter that was
helpful to a coalition of tenant groups who waged asuccessful campaign to repeal a Beame administration"labor cost pass-along" rent increase. The coalitioncontended that the city was letting landlords use a confusing section of the rent regulations (Section 33.8) to
for 38 community -based organizations, is movingahead with approval last month by the Board of
Es t imate and a decision by the groups to sign it
despite serious problems with the recruitment
procedure.Margaret McNeill, president of the Associa
tion of Neighborhood Housing Developers, the
umbrellaorganization, signed
the contractJan.
19.
The Emergency Financial Control Board was expected to give its approval soon.
Passage of the $4.4 million program by theBoard of Estimate on Dec. 1 marked a major victory fo r the 38 organizations. The contract inincludes more than $155,000 in administrative
funds budgeted fo r use by the local groups to
partially defray expenses of their one-year public
service contracts.
Interviews at the local organizations fo r the
375 jobs are set fo r the end of January.One of the major controversies surrounding
the Title VI program has been the design of anenrollee recruitment procedure. The city's originalplan was to fill all Title VI jobs by a citywide
referral process involving neighborhood manpower service centers, the New York State Employment Service and the Department of SocialServices.
This system was strongly opposed by com
program since it precluded the recruitment of
unemployed neighborhood residents by the localgroups. Since September, a citywide coalition of
Title VI nonprofit sponsors has been negotiating
with the city and federal officials for redesign of
the hiring system.In December, the outgoing Beame admini
stration issued a revised recruitment plan permitting nonprofit Title VI organizations to fill 15 percent of their allotted jobs through local advertisement, interviewing and hiring-bypassing the
estab lished referral sources. The remaining 85 percent of the slots are to be filled through thestandard recruiting system. The city's Departmentof Employment insists that its established referralagencies are capable of locating well-qualifiedindividuals for the positions.
At a general meeting of ANHD umbrella participants on Jan. 13, serious doubts were expressedas to the capacity of the referral agencies to matchapplicants to Title VI job descriptions.
However, in order to prevent further delay of
the program's implementation and in view of the
fact that the city has agreed to permit groups to
request neighborhood residents fo r all positions,
the Title VI groups voted to begin recruitment andhiring under the city's conditions.
Purchase in September, 1976. Prior to that he taught at
Ramapo College in New Jersey, New York University,
Hunter College, College of New Rochelle and the
University of North Carolina.Between 1968 and 1976, he served as a housing and
planning consultant to the Coalition for Human Housing and Pueblo Nuevo Housing and DevelopmentAssociation on the Lower East Side and the Clinton
Planning Council-Save Clinton Committee.As consultant he conducted studies for these .
organizations and provided assistance for a wide range :of projects from selection of public housing sites to
development of rehabilitation strategies to economic
development and building organizational bases.He is currently a consultant for the Project on
Tenant Organization and Tenant Action at the Columbia
University Center for Policy Research.
Kravitz said strengthening the capability of community-based organizations and persuading policy
makers not to turn their backs on the city's poorestneighborhoods were two critical issues of the moment.
"The groups that have been around for a whilehave gotten a sense of how much they can get out of
the political process, what its limits are, how to play it,"he said. "I think what they have to do now is really
strengthen their internal institutional capability and
they have to become to some extent financially independent."
Convincing policy makers of the feasibility of
saving neighborhoods like Manhattan Valley, East
Harlem and the South Bronx will not be easy, he added,because "there are a lot of people who are more pessimistic about the city and therefore think it necessary to
write of f those neighborhoods. "
SECTION 8:
THE NUMBERS GAME
Each y e a ~ at this time, people go looking for
specific information about the number of housingunits to be subsidized by Section 8 housingassistance in the new year, only to find that thesefigures are elusive. Getting them can make fo r themost confusing "numbers game" in town.
CITY LIMITS spent the better part of a weekrecently in calls and visits to the Department of
Housing Preservation and Development (HPD),the Department of City Planning, and the area
office of the federal Department of Housing andUrban Development (HUD), only to find that this
year's figures are still "tentative." According to
best estimates, however, New York City will beallocated $66.5 million in Section 8 subsidies.
Section 8 wi I not apply to all of the 11,249dwelling units (du's) that constitute the city's
housing program goals for fiscal 1978 (October 1,
1977 - September 30, 1978). Of this total, conven
tional public housing financing (non-Section 8) isplanned for 1,059 du's of new construction and850 du's of substantial rehabilitation.
Section 8 housing assistance will apply to
936 du's of new housing for the elderly (Sec. 202),440 du's of new public housing, and 1,010 du's of
other government-financed and insured new construction.
Substantial rehabilitation assisted by Section
8 will include 786 du's of housing for the elderly(Sec. 202), 358 du's of public housing, and 1,300du's of other government-financed and insuredrehabilitation.
The Peoples Housing Network will beginanother series of classes in its SCHOOL FORORGANIZERS beginning Feb. 21.
Classes will be held every Tuesday eveningfor 10 weeks.
Included among the topics offered will be:starting a community organization, programdevelopment, anti-redlining strategies, tenantorganizing, housing management and rehabilitation programs and legislation dealing with neighborhood issues.
Close to 200 people from more than 30 organizations attended all or some of the classes at theSchool last summer. These included staff andleadership of community organizations, membersof tenant associations, students, members of
church groups, representatives from planningboards, staff of service agencies, CET A workers
FACT BOOKS
"Fact Books" for each of New York City's
59 community districts are now available at the
Department of City Planning, Room 1616, 2 Lafa
and interested individuals.The cost of 10 classes is $25 per student.
Individual classes are $3.00. Limited scholarshipsand group discounts are available. Classes will beheld at the offices of the Association of Neighborhood Housing Developers, 29 E. 22nd St., 10thfloor. All classes will be from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
To enroll or for further information contact:Roger Hayes
Peoples Housing Network29 E. 22nd St.New York, New York 10010(212) 533-5650
Special longer training programs (Le., daylong or week-long) for new staff, CETA workersor other individuals can be arranged if enough
people are interested. -
BOILER COURSE
Housing Conservation Coordinators (HCC)will sponsor a second course in boiler-burnermaintenance-repair and energy conservation,
Cars passing through the blocks can also tune in. The
frequency is 590 on the AM dial.Because WVMV does not use the airwaves, it is not
regulated by the Federal Communications Commission.Sponsors hope to expand the reach of the radio
station to up to one-half of Manhattan Valley. That willmean either buying additional transmitters (at $300 to$400 each) or finding a way to shift to the airwaves without falling under FCC jurisdiction.
WVMV's current broadcast schedule is 4 p.m. to
7 p.m. on Tuesday and Friday. Programming is stillbeing developed, but the station's goal is to mix musicwith about 15 minutes every hour of discussion of housing, health, welfare and other issues of importance tothe neighborhood. -
At the moment, most of the programming is inEnglish. Organizers of the station discovered that manyof the Spanish-speaking residents of the communityread and write only in English. Celeste is serving astranslator at the station and a format that will includemore Spanish is being worked out.
Ann Schwalbach, director of Parents for Improved
Playgrounds, a co-sponsorof
WVMV, said the idea forthe station was an outgrowth of the after-schoolprogram sponsored by PIP. The organization got afederal grant in 1976 for the broadcast equipment,which includes a mixing board, turntable and severaltape recorders in addition to the transmitter. A telephone connection enables listeners to call the stationand speak on the air.
The station has had to overcome a number of tech
nical and logistical problems. Early on, when the stat ionwas located in a church, the engineer discovered duringtests that the signal was being absorbed into the copperroof of the building and going nowhere. Space has been
ing from a cramped control room at the ManhattanValley Development Corp. (also a co-sponsor) at 931
Columbus Ave. The station plans to move soon to spacea few doors away in a building being rehabilitated byMVDC. Equipment trouble knocked the station off the
air for about three weeks.One of the things he learned from putting the
station together, Mack said, was how slowly thingsmove in a situation that depends on voluntary efforts."I was sure we would be set up in six months," he said.
To prepare for the station, Schwalbach asked community organizations to participate in programs andMack taught classes on operating the equipment.
The technical training was easy, Mack said, compared with overcoming the conventional model of howa broadcaster should sound and getting people to bethemselves.
"Everyone has a style and a personality that comesout and everyone has a lot to contribute," he said."Community radio is different. You don't have tosound great. "
At first, people were very shy about going on theair. "In general they were taught you had to be smart,handsome, witty and very articulate. But that was notthe purpose of the Communications Act of 1934, whichsaid the airwaves belong to the people. I t took convincing people that they were legitimate just because theyhad never been on radio before. "
Before long, the stage fright had melted. "I'm
always on the air," said Reinaldo, who admitted he had
been nervousat
first."I didn't
want to goon."
Butafter some practice, "I got used to it."
What happens if he suddenly runs out of things tosay on the air? No problem. "I just give the key to the
WASHINGTON-The voice of the nation's neighborhoods is beginning to be heard in that part of the Washington bureaucracy that is concerned with urban policyand programs. Traditionally, mayors have spoken forthe cities and there is little doubt that they are stillregarded as the "legitimate" ambassadors of thenation's urban centers. But there are also some signsthat neighborhoods are beginning to carve out a place
in the scheme of federal urban policy.A recent trip through the federal maze turned up a
number of programs that seem to be targeted more at
neighborhoods than at City Hall. There is a newassistant-secretary level office of neighborhoods ' at
HUD. Neighborhood issues are a compooent of President Carter's soon-to-be-announced domestic policy.And Congress, recognizing that city neighborhoods"are a national resource to be conserved and revi
talized, " has created a national neighborhood commission to identify ways of promoting their survival.
Many observers in Washington say all this constitutes a beachhead, the modest beginning of a neighborhood consciousness at the federal level, which theyattribute to better organization of neighborhoods and to
politics."I think the neighborhood issue is joined into this
government for political reasons," said Milton Kotler,
head of the National Association of Neighborhoods."The President was elected by a lot of grassroots support, blacks, working people, neighborhood people.
1
forces, one of which was on neighborhoods. The initialdrafts of the URPG's report recommended $25 millionin direct funding for experienced neighborhood development organizations; $100 million for mini -grants ( '1 000to $40,(00) to community groups for a wide range of
revitalization efforts; $25 million of CDBG funds setaside for awards to city governments with concurrenceof local groups; training of local government officials
to work with neighborhood groups and revision of citizen participation standards. Neighborhood-orientedcritics of the report said its thrust was rapid economicrevitalization of cities without proper concern for itspotential effects (displacement) on many of the peoplewho l i v ~ there. President Carter has rejected the reporton the grounds that it is program-oriented rather thanpolicy-oriented. I t is being revised and the programexpenditure figures ar(:; expected to be dropped.
NATIONAL COMMISSION ON NEIGHBORHOODS - A brand new commission created by Congressto examine the effect on neighborhoods of federal,state and local policies, programs, laws, public and
private investment, poverty and citizen initiated revitalization efforts. The commission, which plans hearingsaround the country, is charged with recommendingnew ways of facilitating neighborhood preservation andrevitalization. It will have 20 members, including two
senators, two members of the House of Representativesand 16 public members.
stration through the city's Community Development,Agency to Operation Open City.
CENSUS - The Census Bureau is developing plansto provide substantial census data by neighborhood, a
first. Under the proposed program, the Bureau wouldprepare guidelines and hold workshops on the use of thestatistical data. The chief elected official of the municipality or the "central council" of neighborhoods wouldsubmit a request indicating the blocks making up theneighborhood for which the census information is
sought.COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT OF 1977 -
The law contains a new provision that requires federal
supervisory agencies, such as the Home Loan BankBoard and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation,to "take into account" the lending records of banks
CAREY NAMES MARRERO
TO STATE HOUSING POST
Victor Marrero, former chairman of the NewYork City Planning CommisSion, was sworn in
Jan. 9 as commissioner of the state's Division ofHousing and Community Renewal.
The $47,800-a-year state housing job hadbeen vacant since last spring.
when evaluating whether to grant bank applications fornew branches, mergers and consolidations.
URBAN REINVESTMENT TASK FORCE - Thetask force, created in 1970, provides technical assistance
(and sometimes grants)to
neighborhood groupsto
encourage urban revitalization. Its method is to encourage increased urban lending by the savings and loanindustry. The program, it should be noted, is designedto help declining but not severely blighted neighbor-
hoods. The task force credits its programs with stimulating approximately $30 million in urban reinvestmentthrough 1977. A bill to establish a Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp., which would institutionalize and
expand the program of the task force, passed the Senatelast September. The House is expected to take up the billin the current session. -
WAGNER APPOINTED
Robert F. Wagner Jr., 34, has been appointedchairman of the City Planning CommisSion, effective January 1,1978. His annual salary is $47,093.
Elected Manhattan Councilman-at-Iarge in -1973, Wagner, a Democrat, ran in the Novemberelection as a Republican-Liberal for ManhattanBorough President and was defeated by Andrew
the most part the working poor, welfare recipients or
persons livingon
meager social securityb e n e f i t ~ . Most
of the CDCU savings accounts they keep are very small.When they cash payor benefit checks at the CDCU,
members are urged to deposit a small amount-perhaps
the fee they would have had to pay a commercial checkcashing service.
"In addition to cashing checks and encouragingpeople to save, we also sell food stamps and money
orders, and accept utility payments for the small fee of
35
cents, and do fmancial counseling," explains Americo Rodriguez, loan officer at CABS. According to
Rodriguez, CABS is the main distributor of food stamps
in Bedford-Stuyvesant and the parts of Williamsburg itserves.
Despite substantial and constantly growing mem
bership rolls, the New York CDCU ' s count on the muchlarger deposits that are provided by non-member
organizations and individuals-foundations, schools,
banks, insurance companies, other credit unions andthe like. These, like all deposits , are insured up to
$40,000 by the National Credit Union Administration(NCUA), which regulates all federally ·chartered credit
unions.How do the CDCU's in their low income neigh
borhoods attract the non-member deposits? "It's verysimple," says Hector Figueroa of LESFCU. "We write
letters to these organizations explaining who we are,
stressing that any emergency money they want to keephere will be available if they run into any fiscal trouble.
We tell them, that if they deposit this money with us,they will be helping the people living here to have a
director of the federation, agree on the importance of
this new weapon in the fight to save neighborhoods.Clark cautions, however, that CDCU's today, for the
most part, lack both the capital and the technical
expertise to rush into' the mortgage field. Assets of$2 million should be the minimum held by any CDCU
contemplating a mortgage loan program, if it is to main
tain at adequate levels the other existing loan servicesits members demand, says Clark.
Given the assets required, Clark asserts, " I f youget the credit union people together with people workingon housing, you'll have a great opportunity for community development. Credit unions are changing from
just being consumer-oriented and are now becomingtotal financial institutions," he says.
" I f the CDCU's are to survive and become a viablecommunity development tool, " Alayon maintains,"they will have to follow this route. They must becomeinvolved in housing."
Pointing out that there are many small buildingsand brownstones on the Lower East Side and in Brook
lyn that need only modest rehabilitation work-work
that is frequently done . now under " sweat equity"programs-Alayon says, "All you would need to do isto get the 10 families in a ten-unit building together to
go to the local credit union and borrow $5,000 each.
This $50,000 would serve to do a moderate rehabilitation of the building, which would be used as collateral.The tenants would do as much of the work as possibleto hold down costs, and the building could eventually be
converted into a low income cooperative," Alayon
predicts.Meanwhile, according to Union Settlement's man
ager Sklar, "W e have been making money availablefor some time here in East Harlem to buy housing
all the money in the world and no management, youwon't go anywhere. But if you have good managementand good marketing skills, you will go a long way, and
I think that's what can happen to the COCU's."
Want to organize a COCU for your neighborhood?
Get together seven neighbors as charter members,yourself included; find 20 more who will commit themselves to buy shares and join up; identify your turf,your purpose and your need; and apply to the National
Credit Union Administration in Washington for afederal charter. I t helps if your COCU can project a
membership of 300 neighbors at the end of a year. The
NCUA will send an examiner to review and grade your
application. In reaching a judgment, the examiner will
appraise both your group's probity and the chances of
its survival.Jim Clark at the National Federation of COCU's
stands ready to provide assistance to those who would
organize a COCU, and information about COCU's
already existing to those who seek it. The federationcan be reached by mail at 501 March Avenue, Brooklyn,
N.Y. 11206, and by phone at (212)442-2077 or 643-1580.•
_CITY LIMITStpublilbed moatllly by tile Auodadoa of Napborllood nouia .
Developen, lac., 19 East llad Street, New York, New York 10010
